Technology shouldn’t abuse people.

Responsible technology is about helping. It’s about meeting its users’ needs and making their lives better. It depends on design, co-design, research, and user engagement. It depends on an ethical orientation and values-driven decision making. And these things are only possible in the context of a community that provides insight, feedback, and accountability.

Simply Secure’s Underexposed Collective is a loosely-knit group of designers, researchers, writers, advocates, and users who reject the current trajectory of mainstream technology development. We believe that technology can better support us. We support people by providing funding, education, mentorship, design support, research, testing, and a community for collaboration.

We are launching the Collective in January 2019. If you believe in this work, please join us. We need your participation and your support to make it happen.

About the Residency

Simply Secure is convening the first Underexposed Residency in January 2019. Fellows from around the world will spend one week with the Simply Secure team focused on a project that they propose. Together, the cohort will use the residency to workshop their specific design challenge. Over the week they will have time for user research, independent work, lectures, critical discussions, design critiques and office hours with leaders in the field. Fellows will also have an opportunity to share their work with the public.

For the first residency, an open call invited practitioners in the space to propose projects in the areas of ethical technology, responsible AI, civic technology, and internet freedom. We envision Underexposed as a replicable model that can create the space needed to work on these hard problems with a diverse community of practitioners and users. With support, Underexposed Residencies can happen on a regular basis, and Simply Secure can provide support to the community, in the following ways:

Supporting users who contribute with time and resources towards testing, giving feedback, and help with co-designing.

Supporting designers and developers who help open source projects be usable, secure, transparent, ethical and private.

Educate designers and developers on how to build tools that support and protect users.

Collaborate with the community shifting the ecosystem of technology to support values of privacy, security, and transparency.

Call for Proposals: January 7-11, 2019 in Berlin

How can we design community norms in public spaces on the internet? What is responsible AI? How do privacy-enhancing technologies fit into people’s daily life? Can we make key exchange simple? How can we provide user control in decentralized systems?

This year, Simply Secure is piloting a new model for Underexposed: a short-term design residency. Underexposed Fellows from around the world will spend one week in Berlin, Germany focused on a project that they propose in the areas of ethical technology, responsible AI, civic empowerment, and internet freedom. Together, the cohort will use the residency to workshop their specific design challenge. Over the week they will find time for user research, independent work, lectures, design critiques and office hours with leaders in the field. Fellows will also have an opportunity to share their work with the public.

Have something you are working on? Want to spend a week in a dynamic design environment workshopping your project? Apply to join us in Berlin January 7-11, 2019.

Applications are now closed. Our cohort will be announced soon.

History

Underexposed started in 2015 as an annual convening designed to elevate tech issues that need attention and prioritization from the design and usability community. In January 2019 Simply Secure re-launched Underexposed with a new model: a Collective community grounded in a short-term residency program.

The challenges we face with technology need a diverse set of practitioners working together to design a better, more ethical world. This work needs to continue past the bounds of a particular event, and into projects, workspaces, and communities across the globe.

Our mission

We believe that the user experience of a device or program plays a critical role in building trustworthy technology. At a minimum, a responsible UX offers timely, comprehensible, and actionable information to users; it gives them genuine agency in interacting with the system. But building responsible UX into the world’s technology is easier said than done. It requires an ecosystem of professionals who understand the stakes and recognize the importance of human-centered design and design research to the process.

For our event series, Underexposed, we invite designers, technologists, researchers, policy experts, and members of the general public to talk about ethical design at the frontiers of technology.

Past events

Partners, supporters, and friends

Simply Secure is a not-for-profit organization and relies on support from the public to hold events like Underexposed. If you would like to support this event and our other work, please consider making a donation via PayPal, OpenCollective, or by contacting us at donations@simplysecure.org. If you are interested in learning more about our sponsorship opportunities, please get in touch at underexposed@simplysecure.org. Thank you!

Questions? Concerns? Contact us at underexposed@simplysecure.org.

We empower practitioners to build trustworthy technology through professional education and research.